Some Surprising Things

Originally Posted 27th January 2015 Today I went off to Shanghai’s IKEA. We move into our apartment tomorrow and we haven’t bought anything like bedding with us, so we’ll be buying quilts, sheets towels etc from IKEA, 7 metro stops away, or a huge Carrefour just round the corner from the flat. There was nothing unusual about the IKEA – the same meandering long distance walk, the Swedish meatballs for sale in the café, the blue and yellow bags. I didn’t even see anyone asleep on the beds, as Rozy had seen in Beijing’s IKEA. But over the last few days I have noticed a number of surprising things. Some Chinese buy fur-lined slippers and wear them as outdoor shoes.

There is Wifi on the metro trains as well as in the stations. If you are under 40 you have to look at your phone constantly, on the train, getting on the train, getting off the train, on the escalator, as you change metro lines, as you walk in the street. If you are over 50 you don’t. The Chinese look 10 years younger than they actually are. Until they reach 50, then they look their age.

It wasn’t typical, but there was a couple shopping in their pyjamas in Carrefour. I thought this was only a US Walmart phenomenon. If you are a tired at work, it’s OK to put your head down on your desk for some zzzzzzzz’s even if your job is customer facing. I did see a tall shop assistant having a snooze, legs apart for stability and leaning on a large display of biscuits, head resting on his arms, arms resting on top of the biscuit display. As soon as a toddler is able to stand, it’s OK to take them on your scooter with them standing on the platform of the scooter, encased between your arms and legs. If you ride a scooter or a bicycle you can go in either direction on the side roads that run parallel to the main roads, which the cars and trucks use. In fact the scooters and the bicycles are pretty much a law unto themselves. A pedestrian crossing and a green man does not mean that the cars will stop. But if you maintain your trajectory, with no change in speed and direction they will weave their way around you. Most Shanghaiese wear quilted coats even when the temperature is 10C.

One lady I saw wore a coat over the top of her quilted coat. I suppose its going to get hot here in the summer up to 40C, so it is cold by comparison, but it has seemed a little extreme, until it started snowing (very unusual) here tonight. China is clamping down on personal VPNs, targeting the three major ones, so it may difficult to use facebook over the next few weeks. They employ millions of people to maintain their firewall – if they knew how little of importance appears on my fb wall, they would probably consider it a huge waste of resources.